Storm brewing

Greg Torode

After the deliberately low-wattage visit to China by US President Barack Obama, it is clear that his administration is placing its faith in co-operation rather than confrontation as it feels its way through an increasingly complex relationship with Beijing.

Intriguing questions remain. Will such an emollient approach really help when Sino-US ties are buffeted by the kind of crisis that periodically strikes the relationship? And where and how will that next big test emerge?

While Taiwan remains as sensitive as ever, and an interdependent economic relationship also undoubtedly carries the capacity to spring a nasty surprise, some in the region are looking askance at the South China Sea as a fresh potential source of friction. It may be largely off the public radar as other issues steal headlines, but it is certainly not off Washington's.

Both the Pentagon and State Department have quietly but deliberately sounded recent warnings at China's activities just as tensions and rivalries across the disputed and strategic waterway come back to the boil for the first time in years.

The completion of a deepwater naval base on Hainan Island and Beijing's intensifying diplomatic assertion of its sweeping historic claim to virtually the entire South China Sea have effectively neutered formal attempts by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to ease tensions.

Beijing has also formalised its objections to routine US military surveillance in the area while US naval brass insist they will continue to exercise their rights to carry out such missions.

Beyond calls for open sea lanes and peaceful resolution, Washington has traditionally kept out of the dispute that sees China and Vietnam claim the sea's Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes in their entirety, and the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim them in part (Taiwan's claims mirror Beijing's).

Things are changing, however. Beijing's backroom bullying of US oil giant ExxonMobil last year has clearly upped the stakes. In private verbal warnings, Beijing's envoys in Washington told ExxonMobil executives to scrap an oil exploration deal with Vietnam or risk damaging its China business.

In the closing days of the administration of president George W. Bush, senior officials, including Defence Secretary Robert Gates and then-deputy secretary of state John Negroponte, expressed concern at China's behaviour.

The worries have continued in the new Obama era. In little-noticed testimony to the US Senate in July, the US deputy assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific, Scot Marciel, confirmed that Washington had raised objections with Beijing. "We object to any effort to intimidate US companies," Marciel said. "Sovereignty disputes between nations should not be addressed by attempting to pressure companies that are not party to the dispute."

Significantly, a senior Pentagon official told the same hearing that, not only would US forces remain "present and postured as the pre-eminent military force in the region", but would boost military diplomacy and co-operation with China's neighbours in the area, among other measures. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence Robert Scher warned of the need "to prevent tensions in the South China Sea from developing into a threat to US interests".

The statements received little press coverage at the time, but have resonated across the region since, coming just as many of China's Southeast Asian neighbours seek to discreetly develop their own navies as a deterrent to Beijing's military build-up.

A fresh academic study this week produced by Ian Storey and Clive Schofield, scholars based in Singapore and Australia respectively, outlines a bleak scenario.

"Conflict is not inevitable in the South China Sea, but if present trends continue, sovereignty and resource disputes will be an increasing source of interstate friction with the potential to spill over into military confrontation," the pair wrote. It is a warning increasingly heard in diplomatic staterooms across the region.

Greg Torode is the Post's Chief Asia Correspondent